15
by nowforruin
Summary: "She's fifteen the first time she meets him, her brother's new friend. She's shy and awkward, hasn't quite figured out how to tame her long blonde hair yet or grown into her spindly legs. He's already beautiful, bright blue eyes that make her wish she was prettier, older, more his type, but he ruffles her hair as he leaves with David." - Emma & Killian through the years. CS.


Some of you may have already seen this floating around Tumblr, but for those who haven't, I hope you enjoy!

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She's fifteen the first time she meets him, her brother's new friend. She's shy and awkward, hasn't quite figured out how to tame her long blonde hair yet or grown into her spindly legs.

He's already beautiful, bright blue eyes that make her wish she was prettier, older, more his _type_, but he ruffles her hair as he leaves with David, gone to a concert she's been deemed too young to attend.

She's never felt more like a child.

When she's sixteen, he's broken. She tries not to spy, not to listen in on his conversations with David. He lost his parents young, but his brother is a recent wound, a fresh grave that brings sorrow to his voice. Her brother is a good listener (he always listens to her problems) but Emma has no place in their conversation. They sit out on the porch that summer until the dawn, drinking beer David's mother pretends she doesn't know about, and Emma hides in her bedroom.

She's broken too, and she wonders if maybe they could stitch each other up. But he still calls her _little sister_ in that teasing lilt of his, laughing when David teases her. He wears his smirk like armor, and she knows it even then.

She's seventeen and she's finally grown into herself, long tanned legs, hair that makes the other girls jealous and bright green eyes when he comes home at Thanksgiving from college with David. She sees it, then, the way his eyes latch into her and widen, a flash of something very different burning in his gaze.

David elbows him and scowls, and Emma turns away. She spends the week with him in the house trying to make herself avoid him, but she can't. She's drawn to him, and she listens to their college stories with longing. When his arm brushes hers, she turns red and wishes she didn't want him so badly. Next year, it will be her turn. She's planning to go the University of Maine, to join them down in Portland, to get out of this small town and _live_.

To maybe make him see her as something other than David's kid sister.

She's eighteen when she meets Neal. He's nothing like David's best friend with the bright blue eyes. He's squirrely and cunning, and Emma falls for him because when she's with Neal, it's just about the two of them. He doesn't make her feel like a kid, or ruffle her hair or call her _little sister_.

She doesn't go to college. She moves in with Neal, much to the dismay of David and his mother. She has no idea how they pay their bills, but she doesn't _care_ because she's free and it's fun and they make plans to move to Florida, where it's warm and sunny. She'll see a _real_ beach, with soft white sand that isn't filled with tiny pebbles that hurt her feet.

She's nineteen when she comes home, her belly swollen with a child she can't bear to give up, Neal long gone. She's thankful David is away at college, because she couldn't handle more than one family member looking at her the way his (her) mother does. But because she's her mother, she folds her in her arms and lets Emma cry.

She's twenty, and she has an infant, and he's back from college for the summer with David. He's different, angrier, and all she hears is the name _Milah_ dropping from his lips like the stab of a dagger. She's too ashamed to spend any time with them, to be a part of their lazy nights on the porch.

Besides, she can't. She has Henry to tend to, Henry who won't sleep through the night unless she's near. She has a job to get up for, because David's mother took her back into the house, but made it clear she wasn't going to be pregnant and not in college and not working.

She falls asleep to the rise and fall of his voice below her window, the crickets chirping away, and she wishes she was a different person, had a different life where she could sit on porches on hot summer nights and watch the stars.

She turns twenty-one, and she doesn't want to, but her friends from work take her out. David's mom watches Henry for the night, shoos her out the door with the insistence she _have fun for once_ because she's watched Emma slowly transform into a sad young woman whose only joy comes from her son's tiny smile.

The light's gone out of her eyes, and the people who love her would do anything to get it back.

She drinks too much. It's not fun, and it's not what she wants, and she calls David from the bathroom floor and begs him to come get her.

Killian comes instead, scooping her light body up off the grimy tiles and carrying her to his truck. He talks to her, but she can't make out the words, just the soft rhythm of them as he lifts her into the seat, carefully buckles her in.

When she wakes up in the morning, he's asleep on the floor next to her bed. She pretends she's asleep until he wakes up and leaves, but it's a struggle to be still when he sighs over her, presses a kiss to her forehead.

She wants to open her eyes. She wants to say thank you. She wants him to kiss her again, but he's still dating Milah and she has Henry. He's twenty-four and doesn't need to be saddled with a toddler and a failure like her.

She's twenty-two when she meets Graham. David loves him. Killian hates him, something dark in his gaze when Emma introduces them as her brothers. She remembers that kiss on her forehead the night of her twenty-first birthday and wonders if that's why, but Milah hasn't gone anywhere. Killian spends less time than ever with her and David these days, anyway, constantly driving back down to Portland to spend the nights with his girlfriend. When they finished school, he moved back. She didn't.

It's one of the many things David argues with him about in hushed tones on their rare nights on the porch. David doesn't like Milah much these days, insists she's not good for Killian, that he deserves better. Killian is silent, but there are more empty beer bottles on the porch in the mornings than ever before.

He grows more distant, darker. His smiles are less frequent, and she realizes she can't remember the last time she heard him laugh. But it's not her business, so she turns her attention to Henry, who against all odds, is a happy child. He laughs plenty.

She's twenty-three when Graham dies a week before they're supposed to move in together. He is (was) a cop, and he gets shot in the line of duty. Emma cries for days, cries until she realizes it's scaring Henry and makes herself stop, holds her son close, and reminds herself to be thankful she has him.

She stands between David and Killian at the funeral, and she doesn't shed a tear, her hand on Henry's shoulder. She's got to be strong now, to keep herself from going to pieces, because she's Henry's mother and he deserves to have a mother who can keep it together.

She keeps her spine straight, but deep down, she knows that it's only the two men on either side of her keeping her from collapsing into the freshly turned dirt.

She moves into the apartment anyway, and it's a small bit of happiness to watch David and Killian help Henry set up his room. Her son is lucky to have these two men in his life, his uncles who love him dearly.

Killian doesn't talk about Milah much anymore.

She's twenty-four when he shows up at her door in the middle of the night, his eyes bloodshot and his breath smelling of liquor. "I didn't know where else to go," he tells her, stumbling through the door and falling on her couch. "I'm sorry, Emma."

"What happened?"

"Milah left me." There's more to the story, she can tell by the pain in his voice. He's family now, but he's David's friend, and while they can go to the beach with Henry together or spend an afternoon watching a movie, he doesn't _talk_ to her. He talks to David.

"I can't go to your brother's," he answers her unasked question, pain radiating from him. "He…he didn't approve. He'll say this was coming."

"I'm sorry, Killian." She wraps her arm around his shoulders, pulls him down until his head is resting on her shoulder, runs her fingers through his hair like she does for Henry when he's not feeling well. Being a mother has changed her – she's softer than she used to be, and her heart aches to see someone she cares about in pain she can't soothe.

"She was married. She went back to her husband."

"I know." Emma sighs softly, threading her fingers through his hair and gently stroking. "David told me a few years ago." She was surprised then, but she's long since stopped thinking about it.

"You never said anything."

"It wasn't my place. You loved her. The heart wants what the heart wants."

She's twenty-five when the truth of the statement really means anything to her. Her last table at the diner refused to leave, so she's an hour late getting home. David's got his own family to tend to these days, a pregnant wife and a house that needs attention, but he never complains. (That just makes her feel worse.)

David isn't in her apartment. Killian is, cooking dinner with Henry. They don't notice her arrival at first, and she watches as he lifts Henry up to the stove, carefully holding the boy back from the flame but letting him stir whatever sauce is simmering away with a long wooden spoon. Their voices are too low to distinguish, but the sound of her son's laughter ringing through the apartment is unmistakable.

Her heart aches at the scene, her son's happiness and Killian, sweet, perfect, Killian, laughing right along with him. He hasn't been much for laughter since that night he arrived shattered on her doorstep, and it's broken her heart to watch him suffer.

He's not suffering tonight.

Henry spots her first, tearing across the apartment and babbling excitedly as soon as Killian releases him. "Killy is making magic sauce and he's teaching me how!" Henry exclaims with excitement, tugging on Emma's hand to pull her into the kitchen before she can even get out of her coat.

Henry is the only one who gets away with calling Killian _Killy_, but she can't help the teasing smile at the chagrined man standing at her stove. "The lad said he was hungry, and I wasn't sure when you'd be back," he says by way of explanation, gesturing to the stove. "It's just spaghetti."

"Thank you, Killian," she says softly, leaning close to inhale the scent of the sauce. She kisses his cheek lightly, not even realizing what she's done until she's already turned halfway away from him. Her cheeks burn, but she doesn't turn back, just scoops up Henry and asks about his day.

She can feel Killian's eyes on her the entire night, and there's a part of her that doesn't want him to help wash the dishes, doesn't want him to linger with her drinking a glass of wine on the couch once Henry's gone to bed, but that's what he does.

"Emma," he says softly, setting the glass down on the coffee table, the wine barely touched.

"I can't," she whispers, clutching her wine glass for all she's worth, because there's something in the way he says her name, a caress she can feel over every inch of her skin, and it makes her _want_. But she can't want Killian – he's Henry's friend, Henry's uncle, and he's David's friend. She _needs_ him in her life, and she can't go ruining that.

She's twenty-six when she's had too much to drink one night, Henry at his friend's for a sleepover and her apartment filled with her small group of friends for dinner and board games. Killian is there, and as the night goes on and the liquor flows, she drifts closer and closer to him. He's been so careful with her since that night, maintaining his distance, but tonight is different. Tonight his arm loops around her waist as she leans into him, his thigh presses against hers, and his eyes darken with lust until she's not even sure they're blue anymore.

He's helping her clean up once everyone else has left, and it's slow going because they're both drunk and Emma is giggling over nothing. She trips on the couch in her clumsiness, reaching for Killian to stop herself but in the end only pulling him down on top of her.

She knows the second his body lands on hers she should push him away, should get up and go to her bedroom, close the door, and leave him to sleep on the couch as planned. But she's so tired of fighting this fierce attraction to him – she's wanted him since she was fifteen – and she barely has the time to breathe before his lips are on hers.

They don't make it to the bedroom, but when she wakes up before the dawn, groggy and hungover and naked in his arms, she panics. She _can't_ do this again with him, but now she knows what it is to be in his arms, to kiss him and feel him inside her, and she doesn't ever want to give it up.

But she can't keep him.

She barricades herself in her bedroom until she's certain he's left, and she ignores his calls, his texts, his visits, until she's certain she can control herself around him. She's hurt him – she can see the pain in his eyes she hoped to never see there again, and it's like a knife because _she put it there_ – but he doesn't tell David what's happened between them and neither does he.

She's twenty-seven when she's the one to show up at his doorstep in the middle of the night. David told her he met someone at a party last weekend, and the jealousy consumed her. She shouldn't be here, she has no _right_ to be here, but here she is.

"Are you alone?" she demands when he swings the door open, his hair in disarray and his pajama pants nearly falling off.

"Emma?" He squints at her in the brightness of the light outside his door. "Are you all right?"

"Are you alone?" she repeats, gritting her teeth and trying desperately not to cry, because if she's too late, if she's missed her chance all because she's been so _stupid_, she's never going to forgive herself.

"It's two in the morning. Of course I'm alone."

It's all she needs to hear. He stumbles back in surprise as her weight hits him, but his arms come around her like he's done it a thousand times, his lips on hers, his hand in her hair. She isn't sure who kicks the door shut, but she knows that when she's lying in his bed later, he's the one to whisper that he loves her first.

She doesn't hesitate in saying it back.

She's twenty-eight when her and Henry move into his house, a ramshackle cottage by the shore that she's grown to love almost as much as the man himself. She doesn't know why she worried about Henry so much – the day they told him that Killian was going to be spending a lot more time with them, he hugged her and said he was glad.

He told her later that night he was happy she had Killian, because Killian needs her and she needs him.

Emma wonders how her son got to be smarter than her.

She's twenty-nine when Henry starts calling Killian _Dad_, and her heart just about stops when she sees the look on Killian's face. Henry doesn't seem to have even intended it, just shouting a goodbye out the door (_"Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad! See you guys later!") _as he runs off to a soccer game. But Killian…he stares after the boy, emotion threatening to overtake him as Emma goes to him, slides her arm around his waist and leans her cheek against his shoulder.

"I didn't ask him to…"

"I know." Emma smiles up at him, stretches to press a kiss his cheek. "I didn't either. He just loves you. We're a family."

"Have you ever thought…" He pauses, his expression so serious as he pulls her closer, cups her jaw with his palm and brushes his thumb along the delicate skin under her eye. "I love Henry, Emma, I do. I can't have you thinking anything less. But…" His hand slides down her ribs, settles on her stomach, flat and trim as it is.

"Henry would be a great older brother," she replies softly, twining her fingers with his and holding his gaze captive, the ocean breeze ruffling his hair. She didn't think he could be happier this morning, but her words push him over the edge, and there's a glimmer of a tear in his eyes as he bends to kiss her, a kiss that starts gentle before turning into something else completely.

She's thirty when Liam is born, and she thinks she may have broken Killian's hand squeezing so hard through twenty awful hours of labor, but she barely remembers it when the nurse places their son in her arms. Henry is with them, and Killian helps him hold his brother for the first time, and she's never been happier than she is in that moment.

It's exhausting to have an infant again, but she's older now, stronger. She has Killian. He dotes on their son, bringing him to her in the middle of the night to be fed, swaying him for hours so Emma can snatch a few minutes sleep. And he does it all while making sure Henry gets to soccer practice and has help with his homework.

She's thirty-one when he proposes. He comes home with flowers, which isn't a giveaway because he's done that before for no particular reason. But tonight, she's cranky because she's been feeling sick all day, and she's pretty sure Henry's given her his flu. David's mother offered to take the boys for the night so Emma could finally get some rest, and he finds her surrounded by blankets and tissues on the couch, a half-eaten bowl of soup on the coffee table.

He tries to soothe her, but she's hot, and feverish, and she doesn't want to be touched. She pushes him away, but her hand grazes his pocket and she _feels_ the small, hard box there. "Killian?" she asks softly, staring up at him in wonder. Her eyes are bloodshot and her hair is hopelessly snarled, but he smiles at her like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

"Darling, this was supposed to all go a bit differently." He chuckles reaching into his pocket for the soft, velvet box and popping it open. "But I suppose we've always done things our own way."

The diamonds catch the light, a delicate silver band set with several smaller stones surrounding one perfectly round diamond. He lowers down to one knee, and she's staring at him from her burrow of blankets on the couch as he very simply says, "I've loved you since you were fifteen. I'm going to love you forever. Marry me, Emma."

She nods through her tears, sniffling away as he slides the ring onto her finger. She kisses him, and she wants more, but she's sick, and damn him if he doesn't spend their engagement night curled with her on the couch, forcing her to drink chicken broth and water and take medication until she falls asleep in his arms.

She's thirty-two when they get married, both their sons beside Killian when she starts down the aisle. Henry is nearly a teenager now, almost as tall as she is, but Liam is still wobbly on his feet. Henry minds him, a happy smile on his face as he watches Emma approach, but it's nothing compared to the sheer incandescence that is Killian's smile when he lays eyes on her.

She's loved this man since he came into her life, and he's healed her wounds as she's healed his. He was a father to her son long before she had any inkling he would be, and he's loved them both from the start. Sometimes, she wishes she had been braver when she was fifteen, when she was sixteen, that she hadn't waited until a drunken mistake nearly cost her his friendship, for jealousy over a one night stand to give her the shove she needed into his arms.

But as she falls asleep in their bed, his arms snug around her, the boys tucked in for the night, she knows it's all happened exactly as it should have. He's the love of her life, and their love story isn't traditional, but it's _theirs_. She was fifteen when he carved out a place in her heart for himself (when she made herself a home in his soul) and he's never left.


End file.
